July 21, 2011: On this day, Apple officially overtakes Nokia in the smartphone market to become the world’s largest supplier of mobile devices worldwide.
It was a milestone for Apple, which launched its iPhone just four years ago, and for Nokia, which has dominated for more than a decade, it marked the end of an era. During the fiscal quarter ending July 2011, Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones compared to Nokia’s 16.7 million.
The Finnish company was still the world’s largest phone maker by volume, but it was clear that the tipping point had been reached.
However, Apple now faced competition from Samsung, which also made smartphones, although the latter’s sales volumes were half that.
Success and decline of Nokia
Nokia created the mobile phone market in 1996 with the release of the Communicator series, which was based on the Symbian operating system and featured color displays and web browsing. However, her phones in 2011 looked badly dated.
In February 2011, the company was forced to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide, and another 4,000 in 2012. To improve things, Nokia partnered with Microsoft to replace its Symbian operating system with Windows Phone 7. Microsoft eventually acquired the mobile division of Nokia in 2013.
However, Nokia still holds the sales record for the most successful model of all time, the Nokia 1100, launched in 2003, with over 250 million units sold.
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